Je voudrais remercier mes collègues.

I want to thank my colleagues for their comments this afternoon. I want to note in particular the experience that every one of the caucus members on this side brought, the care, the thought that went into their comments.

I will say that I found it very difficult to hear the Minister of Education stand up and wave away the many significant issues and concerns that we have raised here today. There is no denying the state of our schools today. There is no denying that our kids are studying and working in overcrowded classrooms. There is no denying that our education workers and our students are experiencing more violence in classrooms than ever before.

I heard some of the members opposite, when one of my colleagues mentioned Kevlar, scoff at that. This is a reality. This is a reality that education workers in this province are facing every day. I heard the members opposite in the government talk about the fact that they were so proud of all of the hiring they’re doing. My goodness, where are they?

We, I think, have made a very clear case for the fact that our students are suffering, that our parents suffering, that they are bearing the literal cost of these additional resources. Right now, parents cannot put up with anything else.

We, in the opposition, will not put up with this government’s creating of a crisis in our education system. We will fight tooth and nail to save that public education system. It is the cornerstone of our democracy. We will stand for it.

I really do hope that the members opposite, that the government, support this excellent motion. Why would we not throw everything we can to support our public education system in this province?

I want to move the following motion:

Whereas the government has cut education funding by $1,500 per child since 2018; and

Whereas this underfunding is preventing our children from getting the learning and mental health supports they need; and

Whereas this results in a challenging and unsafe learning environment; and

Whereas this has a disproportionate impact on our most vulnerable students; and

Whereas the burden is falling to parents to find and pay for the supplemental mental health and education supports that their children need;

Therefore, in the opinion of this House, the government of Ontario should substantially increase funding for public education in Ontario so that every child receives the high-quality education they deserve, regardless of their family’s income.

It’s also my belief that one of the features that distinguishes Canada is its quality public services, like education and health care. We are considered leaders in the world because of these public services—or we have been. As Ontarians, we’ve been proud that your ability to get the care that you need was never dependent on the size of your wallet or that your children could get one of the best educations in the world no matter what your parents earned. But today, under this government, things are not okay. This government wants Ontario students to settle for basic when our kids deserve so much better than that.

Today, I want to start by setting the record straight on how the Conservatives are really treating education in the province of Ontario. Because in spite of this government’s claim of historic spending in education, the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association has said this year’s funding is the lowest level of per-student funding in more than a decade.

The Minister of Education and the Premier have not, as they like to claim, increased funding for education. It’s simple. In fact, education funding has decreased every single year since they have been in government. In fact, education funding is down by $1,500 per child since 2018. In fact, since 2018, this government has also cut at least 5,000 classroom educators. In fact, the only thing that’s historic about these funding levels is this Minister of Education’s crusade to underfund our schools and send more families into private education. That’s the truth of the matter: replacing our public education with a system where, yes, you, the people of Ontario, the parents, have to pay.

School boards are getting less money year over year. That’s a fact. This government simply doesn’t want to acknowledge all the struggles that our kids, that parents, that teachers, that other staff are dealing with. Well, here’s the reality: Extreme teacher shortages across all the schools in this province; 24% of elementary schools and 35% of secondary schools are reporting teaching staff shortages every single day. There are students who require additional supports that are being sent home from school, because there are not enough staff available to help them.

Every single day, parents are having to find and pay out of pocket for the supplemental mental health and educational supports that their children need. These were things we used to actually be able to count on our schools to provide. More kids today are experiencing depression and anxiety than ever before—ever before. Big school boards; small, rural district school boards: They’re all facing deficits. They’re all looking at having to make cuts—cuts to schools in rural areas, cuts to schools in big cities, everywhere in between.

This government is denying equal learning opportunities for kids everywhere—fact. Cuts are also affecting children’s safety. Violence in schools is on the rise. But the Minister of Education’s student safety allocation is only 14 cents per child per school day. Structural deficits created by this government are forcing everyone—boards, teachers, parents—to make difficult decisions that are going to impact their children, their learning and—you know what?—Ontario at large.

Members opposite like to stand up here every day blaming this and that on the carbon tax. Can they stand up there today and say the carbon tax is why Ontario’s education system is crumbling? Let’s see; we’ll find out. I think it’ll be a bit of a reach, but you never know.

The thing is that when this government says that the education budget for the 2024-25 school year is Ontario’s largest ever—and you’re going to hear them say that in a few minutes, I suspect; they’re going to say it over and over again—they’re not taking into consideration inflation and the role that it plays in budgets. Members on this side will recall that this morning, I laid that out for the government, for the minister. A budget that ignores inflation is a budget that ignores reality.

A computer costs more today than it did a year ago. That’s a shortfall. People know this. We are living it: a $1,500 shortfall for each and every student in this province. When this government says their funding is the largest ever, we only need to read between the lines to see what the numbers are really saying. What they’re saying is that kids and schools are being shortchanged.

The government, I will say, wants us to focus on vaping and cellphones. You know, I’m a parent. We care about these things—we sure do—but they are underestimating parents in Ontario when they think that they don’t know that without investing in the qualified and caring professionals that students need in schools and in classrooms, cellphones will still be there, vaping will still happen and students’ mental health and their well-being will be at greater risk than ever before.

Parents know what’s happening, because along with all those mounting grocery bills and the rising cost of things that this government could actually do something about—the cost of school supplies, the cost of clothing, the cost of food, the cost of everything—now they have to decide, “Do I turn to a private tutor? How do I find support for my child who is struggling so hard with math and with reading in bigger and bigger classrooms with fewer and fewer supports?”

Speaker, yesterday was Mother’s Day. Happy Mother’s Day, belatedly, to all of those and to all the mother figures in our lives. Yesterday, I was thinking a lot myself about the joys of motherhood. I’m the mother of two daughters, now grown. But I was also thinking about the struggles. It’s not easy. It’s complicated being a parent.

I was thinking about all the supports we depend upon, like the nurses who, I will say, held my hand when I was struggling as a new mom; the early childhood educators who—as working parents, my partner and I had to leave our little ones every day, from the time they were less than a year old, at daycare. Every day, it was the trust you put in those people, how much you depend on them and how little they are actually rewarded for that work in our society, everyone who supported my kids.

It is why I ran to be a school board trustee in 2014. I really wanted to make sure that our schools would be stronger. Many of my colleagues have also been school board trustees or educators themselves. I wanted to make sure they were better. I’ve got to tell you, under the previous government, under the Liberals, it wasn’t so great either. Our schools were pretty lean.

As a working parent, you have to put so much trust in those caring adults who you leave your children with. You drop them off when they’re little, in junior kindergarten, and you hope that Mr. Evans is going to make her day great. You say, “If she falls, he’s going to pick her up. If she’s struggling, somebody is going to be there to help her.”

But as they get older, things get even more complicated. Sometimes, as a parent, it can feel like you’re just shouting into a black hole. So I ran because I wanted to ensure that other people, other parents, people who maybe had fewer resources than I did, maybe had more challenges and more obstacles, would have that strong system that they could depend on, that bedrock beneath them. But today, that’s not how it is in Ontario; it’s worse, and it’s getting worse and worse. For families that can’t afford private mental health services, their children simply go without those supports that should be guaranteed in our schools, Speaker. That is the reality.

Some may also recall that I was the education critic for a while for our party, and I have to say that in regular meetings that I have had for years with school board trustees—and I think this is the same for all of my colleagues here. We meet regularly with school board trustees and teachers and staff and parents—man, do we hear from parents—the frustration, the disappointment: “How can I help my child?” “Why can’t somebody help me help my child?” They are so disappointed at this government’s absolutely outrageous claims, and yes, their cuts.

I’ve said this before: All this government has to do is talk to one parent in this province and you will know that the status quo is not working in this province. It is not working. It is not working for our kids in overcrowded classrooms. It is not working for our under-resourced teachers. All that that minister has to do is talk to real people out there in the real world before they pass a budget that doesn’t meet the needs of our kids or educators.

I ask you, Speaker, as I conclude, how much more support are our kids supposed to give up on? Is it the kids who are losing their math and English help in greater Essex; or in Peel, where they’re losing their specialized communications classes, their literacy coaches; in Hamilton, where those children are losing breakfast programs? Shameful.

These are not add-ons. These are not extras. These are essential. Our children deserve better than basics. They deserve everything we can give them, no matter how much their families earn, no matter what their parents do. That is the foundation; it is the bedrock of our democracy, of our country and of our province.

Today’s kids—they say this all the time, Speaker—they are tomorrow’s future. If we deny them the good-quality education and services today, we are going to pay for it down the road.

So I ask this government, what do you have against good-quality education? Will you make our children a priority? Will you support this motion?

I’d like to move the following:

Whereas everyone has the right to an affordable home; and

Whereas any solution to the housing affordability crisis must include public, non-profit and co-op housing options; and

Whereas successive Liberal and Conservative provincial governments have failed to adequately invest in non-market housing; and

Whereas the government has failed to legalize fourplexes as-of-right, restore rent control, and implement vacancy decontrol to make housing more affordable; and

Whereas the Ontario government is at risk of losing billions of dollars in federal funding due to its failure to deliver an adequate supply of new affordable homes;

Therefore, in the opinion of this House, the Ontario government should get back to building by swiftly and substantially increasing the supply of affordable non-market homes in Ontario.

After six years in government, members across the aisle have failed to present the people of this province with a solid action plan on housing. They have failed to inject confidence in people that they are moving in the right direction to get more housing built. But the fact is that this government isn’t moving at all. If anything, they only seem to be moving backwards.

The government’s housing plan can be summed up with one word: greenbelt. Remember that scheme? Or should we say plan? The plan that the Conservatives had put together to make their insider land speculator friends ultra rich? That plan. The so-called plan that they’re under an RCMP criminal investigation for. Ever since then, this government has been flip-flopping and scrambling to come up with yet another so-called plan. They’ve reversed every single housing policy they’ve proposed in the past year. That’s what happens when you try to ram through policy without proper industry and community consultation. And who’s left waiting and frustrated because of this government’s failures? The people of Ontario, that’s who.

Their housing plan is off to a laughable start. They’ve built only 1,100 affordable units since 2018, and that’s less than 6% of the province’s housing target under the National Housing Strategy. With this—I’m going to say it—abysmal record, the Premier has the audacity to present municipalities with even more roadblocks by saying, “No, no. You can’t build fourplexes.” At a time when we need all solutions and we need all hands on deck, why is this government saying no to options like that? The province also stands to lose—and we’ve pointed it out so many times on this side of the aisle—billions in federal housing money because of this Premier’s unthoughtful comments. Can you trust this government to do the right thing anymore? I know that I can’t.

So, yes, while we all agree there’s an urgent housing crisis in front of us, Mr. Speaker, let me be clear that the Ontario NDP is the only party here with a unique and ambitious plan to solve this issue. I’m proud of the housing plan that we have developed: a plan that’s going to help young people move out of their parents’ home and basement; a plan that will help newcomers put down roots as they start a new life; a plan that will help seniors to downsize; a plan that will help people trying to leave a violent relationship; a plan that will help people living with disabilities and people living with addictions too.

Homes Ontario is the Ontario NDP’s plan to get government back to building affordable homes for the people. We’ve done it in the past, and we need to get back to it again. We’re calling for a massive expansion of non-market housing with the aim of at least doubling the current proportion. This would include public, non-market, co-op and transitional homes. To do this, we will offer public land at low-cost financing. To do this right, we’re going to do something that this government dislikes to do: We’re going to partner with the municipalities every step of the way. And I want to be clear, Speaker, because we are listening. Our plan isn’t just to build new homes, but to also look at existing housing and implement a strategy of repair that extends the life of what we already have.

We’re also calling for real rent control, an end to exclusionary zoning, and implementing vacancy decontrol. And on this side of the House, we understand that getting access to housing is the very first step to getting so many other problems that are growing in our communities under control. Transitional and supportive housing is absolutely imperative if we want to support people living with addiction. And we also need it to address—guess what? We also need it to address intimate partner violence that is equally an epidemic.

Don’t we all remember, when just a few weeks ago at Queen’s Park, we were flooded with survivors here asking the government to take them and their concerns seriously? People fleeing harm and violence need to know that supports like transitional housing exist on the other side.

I ask you, Mr. Speaker, is asking for housing asking for too much? The people of this province are tired. They are deflated and they are frustrated at this government’s lack of vision. I hear it every single day everywhere I go across this province. As our municipalities are doing the best they can with the roadblocks that the Premier and the housing minister keep throwing at them, they know this is the time to work with municipalities as partners, not complain to the feds about overstepping their bounds and talking to municipalities directly. Honestly, if this government won’t do it, I mean, maybe the feds will have to.

With a housing crisis of this scale, we have to find big solutions that can help people find a home they love in the community they want to live in. And while this government wastes time and moves in reverse, we in the Ontario NDP are leading the charge in building the affordable homes that this province needs and deserves. If this government understands how deep the housing crisis is, if they see how stuck and frustrated the people feel, then they will vote yes to our motion today to get government back in the business of building truly affordable homes in the province of Ontario.

Well, today, we are debating and we tabled a motion asking the government to fast-track a bill that their own Deputy Premier actually wrote, and it’s simply to ensure that Ontario’s public dollars don’t get spent on partisan advertising, but go to actually helping Ontarians.

Being elected is not a free pass to waste the taxpayers’ money, Speaker. It’s just not. Ontarians need a government that’s going to put every single dollar to use on things that matter. They don’t need propaganda. They don’t need that kind of puff piece. They don’t need vanity ads that serve the purposes of this Premier. They need a helping hand. That’s what the people of this province need.

And I want to say, I listened to the debate and the members opposite, the Conservative government members, talking, and I’ve got to tell them, they’re not fooling anyone here. If their advertising and these campaigns that we’ve been talking about this afternoon weren’t partisan, if they didn’t have to worry about any of that, if they were to pass the smell test, they would pass this motion. Why wouldn’t they? But no, they won’t, because they know exactly what’s going on. They know that those ads do not pass the smell test for Ontarians. Ontarians don’t need an advertisement trying to sell them a vision of a province that they don’t have, that’s unreachable for them. My colleague the member from London North Centre said it’s like they’re showing us nice things that we just can’t have. It’s kind of cruel.

We in the NDP really do believe in responsible government, in transparency, in integrity. The government can be done differently, and it can be done well. That’s why I’m hoping that the members opposite will actually join us in supporting this motion, a motion their own Deputy Premier drafted. Support us in ending this wasteful spending on propaganda and puff pieces, and actually help us get some things done that are really good for the people of this province. Ontarians deserve that, and I can assure you that if this government won’t support this motion, an NDP government will bring that transparency, will bring that integrity and will bring back responsible government in the province of Ontario.

—word for word, yes. And with today’s motion, we are asking the House to not only vote in favour of it but to fast-track it.

Let’s get something done for the people of Ontario. Let’s spend their tax dollars responsibly.

I move the following motion:

Whereas in 2017 the Auditor General found that the Liberal government spent $17.4 million on partisan ads with the primary goal of fostering a better impression of the governing party; and

Whereas this is the result of loopholes created under the Liberal government that watered down advertising rules and weakened the Auditor General’s oversight of government advertising; and

Whereas the Auditor General found that, in 2023, the current government used the same loopholes to spend $24.89 million on partisan ad campaigns, including $20 million to promote the Ministry of Health; and

Whereas the current Minister of Health introduced a bill in 2018 entitled End the Public Funding of Partisan Government Advertising Act, and that bill has been reintroduced by a member of the official opposition;

Therefore, the Legislative Assembly calls on the Ontario government to pass the official opposition’s Bill 176, End the Public Funding of Partisan Government Advertising Act, 2024, to close the loopholes and ensure that taxpayer dollars are not spent on ads intended to foster a positive impression of the government.

After six years of this Conservative government, life is only getting harder and more expensive. Instead of rising to the challenge, fixing what they’ve broken and taking on the big issues our province is facing, this Conservative government is spending millions of taxpayer dollars on partisan ads telling people just how good they have it. They are blasting the airwaves with expensive, highly produced ads that have only one purpose: to promote the Conservative Party. But Ontarians aren’t buying it, and neither are we.

That’s why today, the official opposition NDP is seeking to put an end to taxpayer-funded partisan ads and to put that money to work hiring health care workers, building homes and making life more affordable for the people of this province.

Before we go any further, Speaker, I’d like to take us back a few years, to 2017. You’ll remember this as the dying days of the previous Liberal government—a government that was mired in scandal and deeply unpopular after having privatized Hydro One, cut hospital funding and overseen the expansion of hallway medicine. It was not a good time for Ontario; that’s for sure. In fact, the failures and misguided priorities of the Liberal government were what drove me to seek office—certainly, what I was seeing in our schools and in health care.

As their popularity was plummeting and the polls started to look really bleak, they spent big on massive ad campaigns that sought to turn the tide of public opinion. They promoted programs that didn’t even exist yet in some cases. And they did it all not with money from the Ontario Liberal Party, but with taxpayer funds—government funds.

How did they get away with it? Well, guess what? They changed the law to allow them to get away with that. In 2015, they removed the Auditor General’s authority to review all government advertising and to stop ads that were deemed too partisan; that is, ads that don’t inform or share information about government services but instead just seek to create this positive impression of the governing party.

New Democrats took up the issue, and we called out the Liberals. We called them out for rigging the ad review system so that it would help them out. And we had an unlikely ally, I would say, in the Conservatives, who, at the time, were the official opposition.

Leading the charge, in fact, was none other than the current Deputy Premier, the MPP for Dufferin–Caledon. Here’s what she had to say at the time: “The government is spending taxpayer dollars on an advertising campaign on their latest hydro scheme in an attempt to save their electoral fortunes....

“The Auditor General has said that these recent hydro advertisements would not have been approved under old legislation.

“In the past two years, the government has spent nearly six million taxpayer dollars on a series of advertising campaigns the Auditor General said ‘provided viewers with no useful information’ and ‘could be seen as self-congratulatory and in some cases, misleading.’

“It is shameful that this government refuses to respect taxpayer dollars and restore the Auditor General’s authority to review and approve government advertising.”

Strong words.

I will continue. Those were some strong words—wouldn’t you say, everybody—from the Deputy Premier. I mean, my goodness.

The member from Dufferin–Caledon even tabled a bill to reverse those changes and restore the auditor’s authority to act in the public interest.

Later on, they went even further: They made it a part of their platform in 2018. In their platform, they said they were going to change things. But something happened. They got into power. That’s right. They got into power, and then they got into trouble. That’s what happened. A dismal record on housing, court battles with nurses and education workers, stag-and-doe deals, RCMP criminal investigations—suddenly, those partisan ads don’t look like such a bad idea, do they?

A freedom-of-information request by CBC that was just released today found that this Conservative government spent nearly $8 million of public money—your dollars—on a glitzy ad campaign. That’s the one that’s called It’s Happening Here. And I remind everybody: That aired during the Super Bowl, during the Grammy Awards, during an NHL All-Star Game. Was it paid for by the Conservative Party? No, it was not; it was paid for by you—by you. The people of Ontario paid for that. And just for context, people should know that the Canadian Super Bowl ads cost about $250,000 to $400,000 per spot. That’s what this government is spending your hard-earned dollars on. The Conservatives want you to think that they’re—and we heard it this morning when I asked the Premier questions. The Conservative government wants you to think that they’re spending it on ads to attract investment. Really? Nothing in those ads says that, first of all. Nothing in that ad actually speaks to, “Come to Ontario. Live in Ontario.”

More importantly, they don’t talk about any of the services. That’s really a critical piece of what a government ad should be doing. It should be improving people’s lives by providing information that they need—not a partisan puff piece, not a vanity ad to serve the interests of the Premier.

These ads don’t inform the public of new programs. They don’t inform you of new services. They simply sell an idea that things are going just fine—no need to worry about inconvenient facts, like the 2.3 million Ontarians who don’t have a family doctor. By the way, that’s a number that is just increasing and increasing, along with wait times and wait-lists.

But the ad buys are increasing too.

The Auditor General’s 2023 annual report found that the Conservative government spent $20.8 million, 72% of their total ad budget for 2023, on a health care campaign—many of us will recall this—called Building a Better Health Care System. I remember the Auditor General’s report, where they looked at that ad campaign and they said this: “The ads we took issue with included statements such as ‘we’re reducing wait times for surgeries,’ ‘we’re building 3,000 more hospital beds’ and ‘we’re adding and upgrading nearly 60,000 long-term care beds’”—it defies belief, but, more importantly, “without context or evidence to back up these claims.”

At a time when people are losing their access to primary care, when people are experiencing dangerous wait times for treatments and diagnostic checkups, when rural emergency rooms are shutting down and nurses are leaving the profession in droves—and I will point out, as well, we are spending more than $1 billion now on private agency nurses in both long-term care and hospitals; we are hemorrhaging our health care dollars—what does this government decide to do? They don’t try to solve the problem. No. They just put out some fancy ads to tell people, “Guess what? That’s not what’s really happening. Everything is okay.”

So when you’re sitting there in the emergency room waiting room with your sick child, for six hours, for eight hours, don’t worry, because you can look up at the screen above you and see an ad telling you, “Do you know what? You’re wrong. It’s okay.” Well, it’s not okay, and the government opposite knows it.

We’ve gone ahead and we’ve tabled the exact same bill that the Deputy Premier tabled back in 2017—

Thank you so much to my colleagues from the official opposition. Our proposal is the equivalent of introducing 2,000 new doctors in the province of Ontario tomorrow to see two million more patients. What could possibly be wrong with this?

Listening to the government members opposite address this motion, I felt a little bit like Alice down the rabbit hole. But there’s no waking up from this nightmare. We’ve listened to Liberal and Conservative governments over so many years—the last 20, 30 years—with half measures and cuts. Let’s just call the Liberal and Conservative governments Tweedledee and Tweedledum for the purposes of this argument. Nothing has been adequate and the writing has been on the wall all of that time.

Six years into this government’s mandate I would urge them to do something for the people of Ontario, listen to the 2.2 million Ontarians who do not have a family doctor, listen to the voices of Ontarians who are saying, “Please, do something right now.” We are serving you up a solution. You are not approaching this with the urgency that it requires.

If this motion were to pass—and we are forcing a vote on this this afternoon—again, 2,000 more doctors—the equivalent—two million more Ontarians could actually see primary care delivered immediately. It would relieve the administrative burden on family physicians. It will get patients the access they need and then relieve the pressure on our emergency rooms. You have a choice to make. Make the right one today. Vote in favour of this motion.

No, actually, it was before Mike Harris. It was under the NDP government. Thank you very much to the Minister of Education for that lesson.

I want to tell you, Speaker, the good news is, New Democrats have been laser-focused on putting forward solutions that are practical to the problems that are facing hard-working people in the province of Ontario today. In Ontario today, under this Conservative government—and under the Liberal government before them—things are not good. Things are getting worse and not better. But we’re focused on solutions.

One of those solutions: Support this motion today. Let’s get our doctors seeing patients, not doing paperwork. Pass this motion, and let’s move this province forward.

There’s no denying, I think, that Ontario’s health care system is deeply frayed. More than—we often say 2.2 million, but the numbers are actually increasing daily; we’re now up to more than 2.3 million, in fact, since I introduced this motion, who are currently without a family doctor.

Primary care providers and community health centres across the province are overwhelmingly understaffed, and all of us here in this room know exactly what that has led to: crowded emergency rooms; excruciatingly long wait times; overworked, underpaid health care workers who are exiting the community health sector, exiting health care faster than we can ever recruit and retain them; seniors, kids, vulnerable Ontarians being left to wonder if they’re going to get the care they need when they need it.

Along with those critically low staffing levels, Ontario’s health care system is also seeing a wave of physicians retire. Currently, 1.7 million people in the province of Ontario are looked after by a doctor who is 65 or older. Let that sink in. How did the members across the aisle not see that one coming? Doctors are human too. New Democrats have been sounding the alarm on this for decades now—in the previous Liberal government, as well. But members across the aisle can’t see a storm coming for them until it’s knocking on their door.

Just on Thursday, I was in Kingston, where the shortage of doctors has left 30,000 people without access to primary care. The shortage is so dire that when four physicians at CDK Family Medicine and Walk-In Clinic announced that they would take on 4,000 new patients, hundreds of people lined up through the night, in the rain, to claim a spot. That’s desperation. If this doesn’t cry urgency to the Premier of this province, I don’t know what will.

Only two weeks ago, we had a few retired United Steelworkers workers here with us from Sault Ste. Marie. The members opposite will remember that they joined us here at Queen’s Park because they were asking this government to step up and do something about the almost 10,000 people, mostly seniors and retirees, who were de-rostered from the Group Health Centre in the Soo. It’s the only clinic in the area. They’ve lost physicians to retirements, to resignations, and there are no replacements available—and that is going to go up to another 6,000, to 16,000, in just a matter of months. By the end of the year, nearly 30% of the population in Sault Ste. Marie and Algoma could be left without a family doctor. That is going to be a sad day.

We are losing doctors. We are losing nurses. We are losing health care staff. People are stressed, and they are worried about whether they’re going to get the care they need. And where is Premier Ford? Where is this Conservative government? They’re too busy patting themselves on the back with these vanity ads instead of actually improving access to care for the people of Ontario.

The doctors and nurse practitioners who are still on the front lines are having to spend hours filling out insurance forms and coordinating referrals, and it’s cutting into quality time with patients. The Canadian Medical Association studied how many more hours doctors could be spending with their patients if they weren’t buried in paperwork, and that number is 19 hours a week. That’s 40% of their time. That’s up to five hours on administrative work per day. Any of us who have spoken to family physicians out there in our communities know this; they’ve been saying it for years. They’ve been saying, “Do something about this. That’s five hours that we could be spending seeing patients.” That’s 19 hours a week filling out forms when we have people sitting between 12 and 15 hours in waiting rooms just to see a doctor. If doctors are freed up from this administrative work, they could serve—get this—two million more patients. Do the math. That’s like adding 2,000 doctors to the system—so, 2,000 doctors to the system, or relieve the administrative work and see two million more patients.

Training and hiring new doctors—we know it’s going to take years. But funding and properly staffing primary care right now? That can happen right now. We could be doing this today. It’s a question of priorities.

The Ontario College of Family Physicians—by their research, 94% of family doctors say they are currently overwhelmed with administrative and clerical tasks. They are telling us what they need.

I want to share the words of one such expert—an actual, front-line health care provider, Dr. David Barber. He’s the OMA chair of general and family practice. Here is what he has to say about this issue: “Paperwork takes an average of 20 hours per week and includes burgeoning insurance forms, sick notes and requests for drugs.” Family doctors who didn’t go into medicine to do paperwork are doing that paperwork. “We want to see patients; this takes away from it.”

I want to just stop here for one moment and say that last week, when I was in Kingston, I had the great pleasure of meeting Dr. Dick Zoutman, who made the point, when we were talking about this issue, of saying, “Let’s be clear: These are not optional forms. This isn’t an option. This is what we have to do.”

Going back to the comments of Dr. Barber: “The government hasn’t sent any signals to family doctors on the ground that they know what is happening. When doctors aren’t hearing from the government that it has their backs, family doctors are just giving up. That is why we are seeing so many leaving.”

Those are the words of Dr. David Barber, the OMA chair of general and family practice.

This is time that doctors could be spending with patients, with people who are aging—our population is aging—with those new babies we see out there, with new moms and new families, with teenagers who are struggling. These are hours that could be devoted to them right now.

It’s not like we don’t know what works. That’s what I find so frustrating after 20-odd years of looking at this issue in health care policy. We’ve seen how effective our solution is through the community health centre model, where primary care providers like doctors and nurse practitioners have a fully staffed and resourced team so they can focus on providing care, not filling out paperwork. But rather than support those centres, what does this government do? Cut funding, so they’re forced to reduce services, see less patients.

And let me say, on behalf of all of those community health centres that I have visited over the last few weeks alone, my goodness, don’t those workers deserve to be paid the same as those folks in our hospitals? They’re paid 20% less.

I know the minister tries to minimize how important that administrative work is that health care providers are doing. She belittled this, this morning, in her responses to our questions.

Our solution can be life-saving. That’s why we’re putting this forward.

How short are we of family doctors? This is based on current numbers: Windsor, short 36; London, 68; Hamilton, 114; Barrie and Muskoka region, 118. Toronto—can you imagine? Nobody can imagine that there’s a family physician shortage in Toronto, but boy, 305—let alone trying to get a physician who actually speaks your language. Peterborough, 40; Kingston, 23; Ottawa, 171; Sudbury, 33; Thunder Bay, 50; St. Catharines, 51.

As I travel across this province and I listen to people, I hear this every day.

In Alvinston, I was at the Maple Syrup Festival the other day. I was standing in line with a bunch of folks waiting for the school bus to take us to the Maple Syrup Festival. That was fun. Those seniors were talking with me about how none of them have a family physician. These are folks with walkers, with chronic health conditions. Where do they go?

Nursing home residents I met with last week in Nepean and Orléans are stuck in a situation with a bad-actor nursing home company, and they can’t afford to leave it because they can’t afford to lose their nurse practitioner. They’re putting themselves and their families at risk.

Here in Toronto, I met a young man just the other day in my riding, in downtown west end Toronto, who moved there from Brampton and has never in his life had a family physician—can’t get on a list.

This government could start clearing that patient backlog by putting out job postings today for health care team members to support doctors and get people of this province the health care they need right now.

I’m going to end by just referring to one other thing: When I came to the province of Ontario, what, 30 years ago from Newfoundland, one of the reasons that I stayed here was because you could imagine raising your family here on a working-class salary. You could imagine having a good public school for your kids. Do you know what else? You could get a family doctor—not something we had a lot of in Newfoundland, even back then. But you could imagine getting—

Interjection.

I’m pleased to present the following motion on behalf of the official opposition:

Whereas 2.2 million Ontarians currently do not have a family physician and are not connected to primary care, which puts their health at imminent risk; and

Whereas access to primary health care keeps people out of emergency rooms; and

Whereas primary health care providers need sustainable resources in order to maintain capacity to deliver primary care, mental health care, chronic disease management, community supports, and innovative services that help end hallway health care; and

Whereas hiring additional staff support could free up Ontario’s primary care providers to take on an estimated additional two million patients;

Therefore, the Legislative Assembly calls on the Ontario government to urgently implement a strategy to increase the number of staff support for primary care providers so they can spend their time treating patients instead of doing paperwork.

I want to start by thanking the member for Waterloo for her comments—I would say probably one of the best parliamentarians we’ve ever had in this place, as witnessed by that exceptional speech today. I want to say that they were important comments. She brought some of the lengthy history here of broken promises, of promises made, promises broken by Liberal and Conservative governments year after year. People in Kitchener-Waterloo region have seen all the flashy announcements, they’ve seen the big publicly funded paid ads, but what they haven’t seen is the service that they so desperately need.

People across this province see a mess of overpromising, under-delivering, increasingly costly, constantly delayed, deeply flawed, over-budget transit plans. But in Kitchener-Waterloo, they have been totally left behind. This is a government so obsessed with giving out favours to their land speculators friends and donors—they’re under criminal investigation by the RCMP—instead of focusing on projects like two-way, all-day GO that would connect workers to good jobs, good opportunities, that would ensure the people of Kitchener-Waterloo would have reliable, safe, healthy options to get to work, to family, to school. This government is so obsessed with coming up with a plan behind closed doors to deliver a $650-million publicly funded private spa in downtown Toronto, but they can’t figure out how to deliver two-way, all-day GO to the people of Kitchener-Waterloo region.

This is about responsible government. This is about asking this government to support our call for a firm funding commitment and a clear timeline for the delivery of frequent, all-day, two-way GO rail service along the vital Kitchener GO corridor. Will this government support this motion? I certainly hope they do.

Really, shame on them.

This is a government where we have seen rents skyrocketing 37% in Kitchener, and this is a government that voted against bringing back real rent control.

Instead of helping Ontarians who are frustrated and struggling to make ends meet, the Conservative government would much rather spend $650 million—public money—for a private luxury spa in downtown Toronto. That tells you everything you need to know about this government’s priorities. This is a government that is failing to deliver for regular people in this province, failing to deliver for the people of Kitchener-Waterloo.

In fact, Speaker, all this government has been able to deliver for the people of Kitchener-Waterloo so far are excuses after excuses, and excuses aren’t going to help the people of Kitchener-Waterloo get to and from work. They won’t help students get home on the weekend or during reading week. Excuses will not help those who are being left stranded on the platform in Kitchener because the buses are too full to board. They won’t bring more jobs and economic opportunities to the Kitchener-Waterloo region. Speaker, excuses won’t get people the two-way, all-day GO service that they deserve. The people of Kitchener-Waterloo require a comprehensive plan with clear timelines and a firm funding commitment, and this plan needs to be completely transparent to the people of Ontario, and especially to the people of Kitchener, who are still waiting to this day.

Our motion today is calling for the government to finally make two-way, all-day GO service to Kitchener a priority. It’s a priority for those of us here in the official opposition NDP, and we think it should be a priority for this government too, because the people of Kitchener have been left waiting long enough, and they deserve better.

Speaker, I move that:

Whereas Kitchener is one of Ontario’s key economic hubs and is home to three world-class post-secondary institutions; and

Whereas a lack of reliable transit options impedes quality of life and growth opportunities for the region; and

Whereas the official opposition NDP has been advocating for two-way, all-day GO service between Kitchener and Toronto since 2012; and

Whereas the government has failed to deliver a GO Transit strategy for Kitchener despite years of promises; and

Whereas the previous Liberal government also failed to deliver on their promise to implement all-day GO service to Kitchener;

Therefore, the Legislative Assembly calls on the government to provide a firm funding commitment and a clear timeline for the delivery of frequent, all-day, two-way GO rail service along the full length of the vital Kitchener GO corridor.

Interjections.

At that time, the research indicated two-way, all-day train service would create as many as an additional 30,600 jobs and generate $2.5 billion in income and $542 million in personal income taxes. Speaker, those are 2013 dollars; it’s an awfully safe bet that those figures are much, much higher today.

The Liberal government at the time said that it “makes a lot of sense,” and in March 2014 they promised to make it happen by 2024. They made announcement after announcement after announcement. They even went so far as to blanket the airwaves with paid ads for the Liberal Party of Ontario, trumpeting two-way, all-day GO to Kitchener. As my colleague from Waterloo said at the time, just because you put it in an ad or just because you stand up in this House and say it’s so does not make it so. The truth is, they couldn’t get the plan on track. Two-way, all-day GO service for Kitchener fell lower and lower on the Liberals’ priority list.

Flash forward, and two-way, all-day GO between Kitchener and Toronto is a promise the Conservatives have maintained; although they revised the timeline from 2024 to 2025, and just last month, their million-dollar man, Phil Verster, CEO of Metrolinx, said that Kitchener-Waterloo would finally get trains “every 15 minutes or better on the Kitchener line.” Only now, the Conservative government does not have a credible timeline for this work. When asked for one, all Metrolinx can muster is “it depends,” and when she was the Minister of Transportation, all the member for York–Simcoe could muster was, “We’re continuing to work closely with CN to increase service.” Speaker, this Conservative government is giving the people of Kitchener-Waterloo the runaround.

Interjection: That’s right.

Speaker, it’s a bit of a cliché, maybe, but I’m going to use it anyhow: Failing to plan is planning to fail. This government doesn’t have a plan to get two-way, all-day GO service up and running for Kitchener, and the people of Kitchener have been waiting for nearly 10 years now. We’re a month and a half away from that original promised timeline. How much longer must people wait? Because the people of Kitchener-Waterloo have waited long enough.

Now, the demand for this service is more than evident. Just this past May, the weekend GO buses between Kitchener and the GTA were so full, they were leaving people behind on the platform. There are times when the bus service is so bad that it can take as long as three hours to travel between Kitchener and Toronto. That is simply unacceptable. No one—no one—should be left behind on a platform or spend three hours just to travel 110 kilometres.

What’s even worse is it compromises people’s already shaky confidence in intercity public transit at a time when we need more people to take transit and not their cars. Because right now, the overwhelming majority of trips between Kitchener and the GTA are by car, adding to congestion, growing our carbon footprint and worsening Ontario’s economy. In 2016, commuters, shoppers and students took 64,000 daily trips between Waterloo region and the GTA, but less than 2% were by GO train, given the state of the current service—less than 2%. Of the commuters, only around 10% were taking GO trains or buses; 86% were taking the car.

Anyone who’s tried to make it between Kitchener-Waterloo and Toronto on the 401 knows just how congested it is. That time spent in traffic negatively impacts our productivity. It limits the economic potential of Kitchener at a time when we really need it and it’s just not okay. It means that families are spending more time away from their kids, parents commuting instead of spending that critical time with children, who we know right now are really struggling.

It means that families who are struggling right now feel even more hopeless. Because, Speaker, the cost of everything is through the roof right now—rent, mortgages, groceries, everyday essentials—and the congestion cost people even more. Let’s point out, Speaker, this is a government that’s been in power for five years—five and a half years now, I guess—and things are just so much worse for the people of Ontario. Instead of helping people, the Conservative government is just making things worse. They’re rigging the system to help a select few of their insider friends get even richer. They’re driving up the cost of housing by fuelling rampant land speculation with their greenbelt grab, unilateral urban boundary changes and sketchy MZOs, preferential treatment for which they are now under criminal investigation by the RCMP.

I can tell you, Speaker, the official opposition NDP stood up to this government and we saved the greenbelt, along with all those farmers and environmental activists and community members from all across this province. We got that greenbelt grab reversed, but we will not stop fighting until we get true accountability, truth and integrity back to the province of Ontario.

Meanwhile, this is a government that is rewarding the CEO of Metrolinx, the person in charge of failed project after failed project, with a million-dollar salary.

Interjection.

I know; it’s shocking.

And yet, here’s yet another chance for this government to step up and do the right thing. Will they finally show true leadership and pass this motion? Will the members of this government caucus stand up for transparency, for accountability, for integrity? Will they have the guts to stand up to the Premier and stop cowering before him?

Really, I’ve got to tell you, he’s not so scary. We stand up to him every day; you should be able to as well.

It’s time to stand up and do what your Premier won’t: Bring things out into the open, shed some light, clear your good names and pass this motion.

No, you can’t make this up.

Most of the developers in the group are also prolific donors to the Conservative Party, contributing at least—at least; these are only the ones we’ve found—$813,000 to support the party since 2014.

The government has handed down extraordinary directives in at least three instances since April 2020 to help fast-track development on lands owned by some of these very same major developers around that proposed highway.

Does any of this seem above board to you, Speaker?

Time and again, this government has revealed their real motives, their priorities, why they’re in this important leadership role—not to improve the lives of the people of this province, but only to make their close friends very, very wealthy while they’re in power, and that’s it.

Speaker, I want to speak about another issue which I don’t know if I’ve raised yet in this House since we returned from the summer. This government’s behaviour of preferential treatment extends to every corner. Let’s talk about how this summer they rewarded themselves and their donors with fancy new titles. This one I find, personally—I am embarrassed for the government. I am embarrassed—

Interjection: I am embarrassed by them.

The Ontario NDP firmly believe that the government’s handing out of these King’s Counsel designations is absolutely nothing but a Conservative patronage scheme designed to reward their loyal insiders.

I’d like to quote our NDP critic for the Attorney General, the member for Toronto Centre:

“This government has caused absolute chaos in the courts”—I’m going to go back to this, because I want to say, this is just to provide some context of where things are at while this government is prioritizing these fancy titles. “This government has caused absolute chaos in the courts and it’s affecting Ontarians’ access to justice. It currently takes more than four or five years for a civil action to proceed from commencement to trial. We’ve even seen serious convictions tossed out due to delays.

“Justice delayed is justice denied.”

Those are the words from the member from Toronto Centre.

Instead of prioritizing fixes to the justice system, this government has decided their priority is to reward not only their donors with fancy new titles—no, that wasn’t good enough—but they gave them to themselves. You can’t make this stuff up.

Considering this absolutely embarrassing patronage scandal and the state of our courts, the official opposition is calling on each of the Conservative MPPs bestowed with the King’s Counsel title to voluntarily return it. If they merit the title and it’s important to them, Conservative MPPs can go through the same transparent process that you promised after this became such a ridiculous scandal.

Once again, at a time when Ontarians were waiting up to 24 hours in the emergency room to see a doctor; when emergency rooms were closing down across this province because of a sheer shortage of nurses and health care staff, while this government fought them in court to suppress their wages; while the people of this province were waiting in line at food banks, this government was busy doling out meaningless patronage titles that hold no meaning or relevance to the everyday people of Ontario and do absolutely nothing to make their lives better. It is shameful, and the people of this province deserve so much better.

Finally, I think I have made it abundantly clear by now that this government is not acting in anyone’s but their own sole interest. They are here to make their friends wealthier, and that seems to be their only mandate—we don’t know, because we haven’t seen the mandate letters, but we can guess. The more we learn about this government’s preferential treatment for speculators and personal friends, the more the Premier appears to hide.

If the Premier has truly done nothing wrong and has nothing to hide from the people of this province, then why not disclose the records from the personal phone he himself admittedly uses regularly for government business? That’s the crux of this motion. While he’s at it, why not release his emails?

The government is under a cloud of suspicion. It is being investigated by the RCMP. People deserve to know who their Premier is talking to and what he’s saying. By the way, I don’t buy that it’s just Mrs. Johnson calling about potholes. Can we just be real here for a minute? Come on. It’s a matter of public interest. In fact, experts out there agree that it is, in fact, a matter of public record. The Auditor General noted this on page 68 of her Special Report on Changes to the Greenbelt. She noted that under the government’s own Acceptable Use I&IT Guidelines—that’s the name of the policy—it is not appropriate for staff to use personal accounts for government business because of “cyber security concerns.” It also outlines that using non-government resources to conduct government business is unacceptable.

She goes on: “Communication between lobbyists and political staff using their personal email accounts also creates the perception of preferential access and treatment, and thereby an unfair advantage to those receiving unauthorized confidential information from political staff.” A perception of preferential access and treatment; an unfair advantage—not acceptable for political staff, and certainly not acceptable for the Premier of this province, and he knows it.

The Auditor General also includes another very important point on this, again, on page 68 of her report. I’m going to read it here: “It is important to note that any communication between lobbyists and political staff about government business is still subject to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, and is not excluded from this act even if the communication occurred on a personal email account.”

Ministers of the crown and members of this government have it drilled into their heads when they take office that their emails, their phone calls, documents, must be on their government devices and that they are subject to freedom-of-information requests because they are a matter of public record. We know this is the case. This is designed to safeguard the public’s right to know, and it’s there to ensure the transparency of government decisions and government actions. And Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner agrees.

Back in 2019, a staff member in the Premier’s office was caught using his personal email account to conduct government business—including, by the way, managing the Premier’s interactions with lobbyists and police. He was using his personal account to work on the Premier’s “off the books” souped-up van.

The Information and Privacy Commissioner discourages government officials from using personal emails to discuss government records, and in 2019 he had this to say: “The Premier’s office is not exempt from the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act as it relates to government business.” That seems pretty clear. The commissioner said that they recommend “that government and political staff only use government devices and platforms.”

In other words, you cannot evade access-to-information requests by using personal accounts for government business. News flash: They are a matter of public record. So if they are, in fact, a matter of public record and not exempt from the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, why not release them? Is it because this government is worried about what would be revealed? It seems the only logical explanation.

Interjection.

Speaker, before I dig into the official opposition’s motion today and why it has become so imperative that the Premier disclose the contents of his personal phone and email accounts to the Information and Privacy Commissioner, I would first like to talk about leadership and the responsibility that leaders have to rise in the most difficult of moments.

A few months ago, I had the great opportunity to be present at the swearing in of new Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler, with thanks to my colleague MPP Mamakwa. Needless to say, it was very moving. With everything going on around us, whether it’s at home here in Ontario and Canada or abroad, I’ve been thinking a lot about what leadership really means. Grand Chief Fiddler talked about the privilege of leadership, of listening, of always learning from your successes and your mistakes, and why he chose to step up during a very challenging time for the 49 nations that make up NAN.

Madam Speaker, Ontario is in a similarly challenging time. I have tried time and again to use my position and resources as the leader of the official opposition to bring to this government’s attention how deeply people are struggling outside of the silos of Queen’s Park, and my entire NDP caucus team does this every single day.

This moment we are living in demands that the people Ontarians elected, who were chosen to represent their voice in this place, rise and show true leadership—to put aside partisanship, greed, rigging the system to benefit insiders, and lead the way toward prosperity. I think this has just been asking for too much from this government. This order is way too tall for this Premier.

That’s why time and again this government has shown flagrant disregard for the people of this province. Instead of using their power to deliver on meaningful solutions and relief for Ontarians at a time when they are financially squeezed, stressed, worried and weighed down by the high cost of housing and rent, mortgages, groceries, gas, the people of this province have been dealt a Premier and a government who are all too preoccupied with rigging the system to benefit their insider friends. And when they’re not busy making backroom deals that don’t look or smell right to anyone, they’re all too busy lurching from scandal to scandal, losing cabinet ministers, spinning stories when they get caught. This is how this government is leading our province.

Ontario is in a huge period of transition. When the people of this province need the government and the people they have elected to step up and show capital-L leadership, what we have instead is a government that’s under criminal investigation by the RCMP.

Speaker, let me lay down exactly why the official opposition NDP is calling on the Premier to cease his access-to-information appeal and disclose the contents of his personal phone and email accounts to the Information and Privacy Commissioner.

The first example I want to bring up is the greenbelt grab. This has become one of the biggest scandals in the history of this province—bigger even than the gas plant scandal that the Liberals served us during their time. What the government has been involved in for the past year, a scandal of their own making, has cost this province so much time, so much effort and, yes, taxpayers’ money. Virtually everyone—experts, municipalities, First Nations, the government’s own housing task force—told the Premier and his government that pursuing the greenbelt was bad policy, that there was enough land available to develop without having to touch the greenbelt or expand urban boundaries, that the housing crisis is just not about a lack of land. And yet, despite so many voices of opposition, this government single-mindedly, unilaterally pushed forward for the greenbelt to be opened up, and it was ostensibly to build luxury urban sprawl—away from built-up towns and cities, away from jobs and services, away from transit. It’s hard not to wonder, who was this all to the benefit of? It was certainly not the people of this province.

In many ways, this government’s actions have made the housing crisis worse because these real estate games that they’ve been playing, this land speculation, have only further helped home prices to go up and up and up, and Ontario is not a single step closer to building the homes we need in this province. In fact, housing starts are actually trending downwards in the province of Ontario.

The Premier can’t explain why he ignored his own task force, why he ignored every single voice, and we are now nowhere closer to solving the housing crisis—again, a very real housing crisis in this province. More than five years in government, and they have nothing to show. Thousands in tax dollars have been wasted in the wrongful pursuit of parts of the province that were never meant for homes—thousands of dollars and people’s time and effort that could have been meaningfully spent in following the recommendations of the government’s own housing affordability task force. This government’s scandal, this corruption, has set Ontario back years on building the homes that our province so desperately needs.

Speaker, we know these schemes go beyond the greenbelt. I’ve visited the greenbelt issue here, but I’m going to take it a bit beyond that. Even a criminal investigation of the dealings around the greenbelt hasn’t stopped this government. The Premier continues to show us who he really is: someone who puts the interests of a very few of his well-connected insiders above everybody else, and everyone else in Ontario suffers because of it.

I want to talk for a minute about municipal zoning orders. The greenbelt grab made it clear that this government’s schemes run way deeper than we first thought. The greenbelt was a very small glimpse into this government’s troubling pattern of preferential treatment for well-connected land speculators. Ontarians are onside with the official opposition, and they have questions about how far and how deep this pattern extends to other decisions. Does it also include urban boundaries and this government’s frequent use of MZOs? The government says they are now going to reverse course on those urban boundary expansions that came out of nowhere, but let me be clear and, in the words of our critic and caucus chair, MPP Burch, tell you that is the very least the government could be doing, the absolute bare minimum. They finally find themselves without a choice, backed into a corner, because it’s just such bad policy. It makes no sense—so why? What is the government’s motivation?

Well, to Ontarians, I would say that the Ontario NDP are committed to answering those questions and bringing ethics and transparency back to Queen’s Park.

Interjections.

If I may, I’d like to take a moment to quote some of my colleagues here, Speaker—because they say it so well.

The member for Hamilton West–Ancaster–Dundas—I’m going to quote that member. “These forced urban boundaries are the other half of” the Premier’s “greenbelt scheme that benefited wealthy land speculators. I call on” the Premier “to do the right thing and respect the decision of our Hamilton council and community by cancelling this plan.” Well said.

The member for Ottawa West–Nepean said, “Ottawa’s city council has asked the new housing minister to review” the Premier’s “plan—but” the Premier “can’t be bothered to listen.” But “the Ontario NDP are listening and are committed to getting to the bottom of what happened and reversing these forced expansions.” Well said.

The member for Waterloo, somebody I love to quote, says as follows—I’m going to quote her again: “It seems that” the Premier “doesn’t trust our cities to do their jobs. We’re already losing 319 acres of farmland a day in the province of Ontario, and” this government’s “forced expansion will make it worse. After the backlash to his greenbelt scandal, he should think twice.” Strong words from the member from Waterloo.

Madam Speaker, I agree with every single word they said.

This government’s forceful boundary expansions must be investigated. Who’s benefiting? We know that the availability of land is not the issue. A few developers or land speculators out there right now might seem to be the luckiest ones in the whole world, getting an inside scoop on which land to buy right before it’s being added to the urban boundary. Given the Auditor General’s findings regarding the greenbelt, we think it’s absolutely essential that this case of lucky insiders cashing in is also investigated.

One of the properties that the province included in the urban boundary expansion was a 37-hectare farm at 1177 Watters Road, Ottawa, purchased in August 2021 for $12.7 million. All five directors of 1177 Watters Developments Ltd., the company that owns the property at 1177 Watters Road, donated a combined $12,315 to the Ontario Conservatives in 2021 and 2022. This property had been excluded by the city of Ottawa from its official plan due to the provincial government’s own policy to protect valuable farmland, and still, this government chose to include it, raising even more questions.

I want to quote, again, my colleague the MPP for Ottawa West–Nepean right here: “Questions of integrity aside, this decision will cost Ottawa taxpayers for years. The price of building the necessary infrastructure to develop these lands could fall in the billions—a tall price to pay for development that Ottawa’s city staff determined unnecessary in our fight against the housing crisis.”

These expansions are absolutely unacceptable. Municipalities and Ontarians are seriously concerned, and they want and deserve answers. So the official opposition was very pleased to see that the Auditor General will launch an audit into the way this government selects and approves MZOs in this province. I welcome the eventual report that is going to shine a light on this process.

Now I want to talk about the boys’ trip to Las Vegas. I wish our evidence of this government schemes wasn’t as long as it is, but here we are.

On October 18, we, the official opposition NDP, submitted a request to the Integrity Commissioner, asking him to investigate what exactly happened on that boys’ trip to Las Vegas that, unfortunately, has become quite well known to the people of this province—a trip that the member for Mississauga East–Cooksville, the former Conservative Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery, took with two of the Premier’s top advisers: his principal secretary and his housing policy director. And guess who was also along for the ride? A land speculator who stood to benefit from the greenbelt grab. The member’s story on what happened in Las Vegas has changed many, many times. First, he told the Integrity Commissioner that he’d only been there once since he was elected—turns out, it was at least twice. But worse, this government wants us to believe that it was a total coincidence that one of their MPPs and two of the Premier’s closest advisers all provided the wrong dates to the Integrity Commissioner and only corrected the record once media reported evidence to the contrary.

This was a trip apparently paid for entirely in cash. I’ve got to tell you, most people, including myself, didn’t even know that you could still buy expensive airline tickets in cash anymore.

This whole Vegas trip raises so many questions. What were three high-ranking government members doing in Las Vegas with a land speculator? Why were they getting massages together? What else happened in Vegas? And if there’s nothing to hide—this is the important piece—then why did they provide inaccurate information to the Auditor General at that point?

From where I’m standing, none of this looks right, and we know that it doesn’t look right to Ontarians either. We are determined, on this side of the House, to get people the answers and the truth that they deserve.

Once again, let me remind members across the aisle, people out there are very frustrated right now. They are frustrated with the growing cost of living and a government that isn’t doing a thing about it—a government that has brought back a cash-for-access culture in this province. But our promise to the people of this province remains: Step by step, we’re going to put an end to it.

I want to get to a fourth point, which is that while Ontarians, again, are struggling to put food on the table, this government has decided to prioritize building a luxury spa in downtown Toronto.

Madam Speaker, the official opposition has tried to bring this government’s attention to what’s happening outside Queen’s Park several times now. Let me say it again: Ontarians are struggling. They’re lining up at food banks. Even people with two or three jobs—we see this all the time—full-time jobs, are waiting in line at food banks. They’re making meal choices depending on what they’re able to get from the 50% section. The thing is that this is the new normal for so many people in this province.

In these very tough financial times, what we have is a Premier and a government who are busy trying to get a luxury spa built on public land in downtown Toronto. Why? The Premier has called his plan for Ontario Place a “bold vision.” Those are his words, not mine. But the fact of the matter is there is absolutely nothing bold about this plan at all. It is not bold to build a luxury spa that will be used by almost nobody in this province. People are barely able to make rent in this province. Does this Premier really think that they are able to afford luxury massages? Maybe they do—I don’t know. We’ll just leave that to their cabinet ministers, to go get them in Las Vegas, maybe. His plans for Ontario Place just show how absolutely terrible and out of touch this government is from the people of this province. They are living in the twilight zone. The plan is arrogant, it ignores the interests of Ontarians, and it blatantly disrespects the taxpayer.

The official opposition is committed to bringing transparency back to Queen’s Park. We’re determined to uncover just how deep this government’s corruption runs. That’s why—just like we did with the greenbelt, just like we’re doing to investigate who’s benefiting from those MZOs that have proliferated under this government—the official opposition NDP has supported the call for the provincial Auditor General to conduct a “compliance investigation and value-for-money audit” of this government’s plans for Ontario Place. The Auditor General is going to be very busy.

We also submitted a freedom-of-information request to Infrastructure Ontario to get answers for Ontarians—answers and transparency that this government has been denying the people of this province. I can tell you that the Ontario NDP, your official opposition, have obtained documents from Infrastructure Ontario that contain mounting evidence of a rigged process for the Ontario Place redevelopment—a process that ultimately saw this public parkland handed over to Therme. These documents include a parking study from Infrastructure Ontario from January 2021 that mentions Therme and its half-billion-dollar parking garage nearly two years before the public even knew about it. That was also before an election, as I recall. They didn’t talk about it there. It suggests, by the way, that the Premier gifted a publicly funded half-billion-dollar parking garage to Therme and hid it from the public for nearly two years. That’s half a billion dollars of Ontarians’ money being spent on an elite luxury spa while people were pleading for investment in our emergency rooms and our schools.

The greenbelt looked bad from the start, and so does this one. This government is just putting its hands in one deal after another deal. If the Premier has nothing to hide, then why won’t they give us more details on the rushed and secretive deal that this government has cut with Therme, a private European luxury spa company?

We the Ontario NDP are committed to making sure that this land is publicly accessible, not just today but in perpetuity.

We’ve learned through recent media reports—that’s right, Speaker; through the media, but not this government—that the Minister of Infrastructure was informed by Carmine Nigro, the chair of Ontario Place Corp.—of course, we all know, a very good friend of the Premier and a big donor of the Conservative Party, who also got appointed to the head of LCBO. He was informing the government that the site had 2.8 million visitors in 2022 and turned a record profit. Why is it that the minister never shared these numbers with the public? Why did she instead choose to keep Ontarians in the dark and insist that Ontario Place is not enjoyed by anyone, when all the evidence shows the opposite?

The people of this province are being kept in the dark about what this deal is costing them, and let me tell you, that number keeps growing. Initial estimates put taxpayers on the hook for $650 million for the parking garage and for site preparation. We are now seeing that that is a low estimate, as it appears that taxpayers are going to be on the hook for the upgraded water and sewer systems to fill this private luxury spa’s pools and to treat their sewage water.

Commercial property in downtown Toronto sells for approximately $200 per buildable square foot. With 700,000 square feet, that means the West Island at Ontario Place is worth—are you ready?—$1.4 billion. Not only is this government handing over that prime public parkland to an Austrian luxury spa corporation for free, but they’re also giving this corporation that other hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money that I talked about.

So, as the official opposition, we want this project and its secretive deal cancelled.

My next point is, like so many of this government’s undertakings, whether we’re talking about the greenbelt or Ontario Place, the resurrection of Highway 413, too, begs the question of who is benefiting from this deal. It’s not a deal that will do one bit to make Ontarians’ life better or easier. Studies on Highway 413 show that it will only reduce travel time by up to 60 seconds. Then why did this government go to such immense lengths to speed up development, especially after the project was axed? Once again, we find ourselves asking the question: Who stands to benefit if it’s built? Thanks to a deep investigation by the Toronto Star, we know the people who stand to benefit all have some relationship to the Conservative Party—either they’ve worked with the government previously or they’re big donors to the party. The Star’s investigation found that eight of Ontario’s most powerful land developers owned thousands of acres of prime real estate near the proposed route of the controversial Highway 413. Four of the developers are connected to the Premier’s government through party officials and former Conservative politicians—now acting, by the way, as registered lobbyists. What do you know?

According to the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, if built, Highway 413 will raze 2,000 acres of farmland, cut across 85 waterways, and pave nearly 400 acres of protected greenbelt land in Vaughan. It would also disrupt 220 wetlands and the habitats of 10 species at risk.

These are issues that Ontarians really care about. As I travel around the province, I am always struck by that. Ontarians care about this. They care about their food security. They care about the future of farming. They care about species at risk. They care about wetlands.

One of the developers, John Di Poce, was the head of the Ontario PC Party’s fundraising arm for several years, and three other developers—worked on the member for York–Simcoe’s 2018 Conservative leadership campaign, as a government lobbyist. As the former Minister of Transportation, that member played a key role in the decisions about the 413 highway.

Another of the developers, Michael DeGasperis, hosted the Premier and the education minister in a private luxury suite at the BB&T Center in Miami to watch a Florida Panthers NHL game in December 2018—coincidence?

I move the following motion: Whereas the government is under criminal investigation by the RCMP for their removal of lands from the greenbelt; and

Whereas the Auditor General is in the process of reviewing whether there has been mismanagement and abuse of ministerial zoning orders; and

Whereas there are outstanding questions about an inappropriate relationship between a former government minister and a land speculator, and incorrect information provided to the Integrity Commissioner about this relationship; and

Whereas there are outstanding questions about whether there was preferential treatment given to a foreign company to build a private spa on public land at Ontario Place; and;

Whereas there are outstanding questions about whether there was preferential treatment given to a foreign company to build a private spa on public land at Ontario Place; and;

Whereas there are outstanding questions about preferential treatment given to government donors and personal friends of the Premier with respect to the building of Highway 413; and

Whereas there are outstanding questions about unqualified patronage appointments to public agencies, boards, and commissions; and

Whereas the Premier has admitted that he regularly uses his personal phone to conduct government business and those communications might be relevant to these inquiries;

Therefore the Legislative Assembly calls on the Premier to cease his access-to-information appeal and disclose the contents of his personal phone and email accounts to the Information and Privacy Commissioner.

The member from Waterloo is right: This is indefensible.

They now have a criminal investigation at their door. We can’t trust a word they say. They have to show us the papers. They need to open the books, because the people of this province deserve answers. So I ask: Why won’t the Minister of Infrastructure show us the business case that she says showed it was more expensive to renovate the Ontario Science Centre than build a new one at Ontario Place?

Interjection.

Will the Premier and his government leave Ontarians on the hook to pay for something for the next 100 years that they never wanted in the first place? Should the Therme spa fail, what happens then? Can this foreign company do what they want on our public lands? Is this another shady deal that’s tapping into the public coffers of this province to benefit private interests? I’ll tell you, it has all the makings of one.

Speaker, I want to end by saying that the last thing this government needs is another criminal investigation. That’s why we, in the official opposition NDP, are asking this government to just cancel this ridiculous deal; get realistic about revitalizing this important public land, this important waterfront; keep it public; and stop this pattern of handing out secret backroom deals to corporations over the public interest. Will they step out on the right side of governance today and pass our motion?

We know. But if they really want to see this spa built, then the city of Toronto mayor, Oliva Chow, has graciously proposed an alternative: the Better Living Centre, which would also, I think, perhaps be a better fit.

All the people of this province want to know is, how much is this really going to cost them? The official opposition NDP care as well about public accountability for their hard-earned tax dollars.

But Ontarians also want to know why, since 2018—that’s five years of this Premier’s government—an annual report for Ontario Place has not been published once, not once—all of a sudden, no published reports. They’ve kept secret how much revenue has been brought in from tenants like Live Nation or expenses that Ontario Place has incurred during this time. These reports are supposed to be published around the same time as public accounts every year. Ontario Place Corp.’s financial results are consolidated annually by the government of Ontario. Let me be clear what that means: This government knows. They know, but they aren’t going to tell us. Why? Why is this government so bent on hiding facts and the truth from the very people who pay their salaries, from the very people who will be paying for this absolutely nonsense deal? We see absolutely no transparency, no responsibility from this government, and I think the people of Ontario are asking, “What are they hiding?”

We’ve got them under investigation by the RCMP right now for a deal that was bad—a bad deal. I want to say, the people of this province have said enough is enough. They want to know what this Premier has signed them up for, why he won’t release the terms of the 95-year lease of our public lands, our waterfront, that he is gifting to a private foreign company. Why the secrecy?

The questions just keep coming. Who stands to benefit? Who stands to benefit from this backroom deal? Because it certainly isn’t the people of Ontario. This deal shows us that, once again, insiders are everywhere when it comes to this government. I’ll let you connect the dots, Speaker.

We have Mark Lawson, Therme Canada’s highest-profile executive, who worked in Premier Ford’s office and, guess what, before that, as chief of staff for the Minister of Finance. Then there’s Edward Birnbaum, a new hire announced about a week ago, who came from—also a friend of the Premier—Mayor John Tory’s staff. Finally, there’s Simon Bredin, a Therme spokesperson, who has worked formerly for Navigator, connected to the Conservative Party. Spacing magazine has noted that Therme’s top strategy consultant is John Perenack, another Conservative Party insider whose clients have included EllisDon, the general contractor for the Ontario Place site services replacement project.

Through freedom-of-information requests and questions before the legislative committee, the NDP has learned that there was no fairness monitor for the Ontario Place procurement. I want to remind the people of Ontario: This is standard practice for large procurements, because it’s there to ensure fairness and integrity. Why wasn’t there a fairness monitor?

The government has also been unable to show any scoring criteria used to assess the bids, or the scorecards for each bid. Without the scorecards, we don’t have any way of knowing whether the contract was awarded based on evidence or preferential treatment. Preferential treatment, Speaker: I suspect that’s going to be the real issue here.

Journalist John Lorinc—who, I think, actually is a resident of my riding, a constituent—was writing for Spacing magazine, and he found that the procurement process “lacked ... detail about project financing and public information on other proposals for the site.” I wanted to quote him here. He’s an award-winning journalist, and he writes, “What’s more—and this seems like a highly salient detail—the 38 other bidders were told, in the Call for Development document, that the site had adequate parking, and that they should fashion their proposals accordingly. It was only after the government (via Infrastructure Ontario) selected Therme that it announced the construction of a massive five-level parking garage—an unambiguous commercial benefit to Therme that was never made available to the other bidders.”

Speaker, none of this looks right. It doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t smell right. This government is tanking in trust and accountability—

Mr. Speaker, I’m pleased for us to be able to debate the following motion:

Whereas Ontario Place is public property intended for the public benefit; and

Whereas there has been no meaningful public consultation on how Ontario Place should be developed; and

Whereas there is evidence to suggest that the bidding process gave an unfair advantage to specific companies and there was no fairness monitor in place to oversee the process; and

Whereas the government has refused to release details of the reported 95-year lease for a private spa; and

Whereas the government is spending at least $650 million of public money to provide private benefits for the spa; and

Whereas people are experiencing an affordability crisis and feeling the impacts of this government’s cuts to health care, education and housing;

Therefore, the Legislative Assembly calls on the government to terminate the lease with Therme Canada and stop the transfer of public funds to private profits.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to tell this government how the people of Ontario are doing. They’re deeply struggling. The relentless rise in the cost of living, housing, rent, mortgages, groceries and gas is forcing Ontarians to make very tough choices. They’re making meal choices depending on what grocery items are on sale.

And while Ontarians are stressed about how they’re going to stretch their paycheque till the end of the month, or whether renoviction and potential homelessness is around the corner for them, in these tough financial times, what we have is a Premier and a government who are busy trying to get a luxury spa built on public land in downtown Toronto. I’m talking about the Premier’s illogical plan for Ontario Place and what he believes is—I want to quote him here—a “bold vision.” That’s the Premier’s own words, not mine—definitely not mine. Let me tell you, there is nothing bold about a plan that is handing hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money to a private company for a luxury spa that most people will not even be able to afford, because most people right now are struggling to afford the basic necessities of life. The only thing that’s bold about this plan is how arrogantly this government is steamrolling over a public park, ignoring the interests of Ontarians and blatantly disregarding taxpayers.

Speaker, just like with the greenbelt, the official opposition won’t stop asking questions until this government gives us and the people of this province some answers and until trust and transparency and accountability are returned to Queen’s Park. In this effort, the official opposition NDP has asked the provincial Auditor General to conduct a compliance investigation and value-for-money audit of the government’s plans. We also submitted a freedom-of-information request to Infrastructure Ontario to get answers for Ontarians—answers and transparency this government has been denying the people of this province.

Today, I can reveal that the Ontario NDP has obtained documents Infrastructure Ontario provided that contain mounting evidence of a rigged process for the Ontario Place redevelopment—a rigged process that ultimately saw this public parkland handed over to Therme. These documents, Speaker, include a parking study from Infrastructure Ontario from January 2021, and that mentions Therme and its half-billion-dollar parking garage nearly two years before the public even knew about it. It suggests that the Premier gifted a publicly funded, half-billion-dollar parking garage to Therme and hid it from the public for nearly two years and throughout an entire election. That’s half a billion dollars of Ontarians’ money spent on an elite luxury spa while people were pleading—pleading, Speaker—for investment in emergency rooms in this province and schools. The greenbelt smelled bad from the very beginning and so does this one.

Ontarians know a bad deal when they see one. That’s why we banded together to stop the greenbelt grab in its track. Now we are looking at a government that is under criminal investigation by the RCMP. Madam Speaker, if the Premier has nothing to hide, then why won’t they give us more details of the rushed and secretive deal that this government has cut with Therme, a private European company? The Ontario NDP is committed to making sure that this land is publicly accessible not just today, but in perpetuity.

We’ve learned through recent media reports—through the media, but not, by the way, through this government, despite many, many requests—that Minister Surma was informed by Carmine Nigro, chair of Ontario Place Corp.—and, by the way, I want to point out again, a major donor and a friend of the Premier’s and a donor to this party, but also somebody that not only is the chair of Ontario Place, but was made the chair of the LCBO because, you know, one’s not good enough. That site had 2.8 million visitors in 2022. That’s according to Carmine Nigro, the chair of Ontario Place Corp.: 2.8 million visitors in 2022. They turned a record profit.

You know what? I checked. That’s actually almost on par with the number of visitors to the Statue of Liberty in a year. That’s no small thing. So why is it that Minister Surma never shared these numbers with the public? Why did she instead choose to keep Ontarians in the dark and insist that Ontario Place is not enjoyed by not just Torontonians, but by Ontarians? The people of this province are being kept in the dark about what this deal is costing them. They’re being kept in the dark about the facts of who goes and how many visitors go to Ontario Place. And let me tell you that the number of what this deal is costing the people of this province keeps on growing.

Initial estimates put taxpayers on the hook for $650 million for the parking garage—a parking garage—but also, yes, I’ll grant you, for some site preparation. But we’re now seeing that that is a low estimate. It appears that taxpayers are also going to be on the hook for the upgraded water and sewer systems to fill this private luxury spa’s pools and to treat their sewage water.

Commercial property in downtown Toronto sells for approximately $200 per buildable square foot. With 700,000 square feet, that means the West Island at Ontario Place is worth about $1.4 billion. Not only is this government handing over this prime, valuable, public parkland to an Austrian corporation for free, they’re also giving this corporation hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money. We, the official opposition, want this project and this sketchy deal cancelled.

My NDP colleague and our infrastructure critic, Jennifer French, has asked the minister and the Premier some really tough questions about their Therme project and the details, and their response has only been, “Just trust us.” I’m going to tell you, “Just trust us” isn’t going to cut it with Ontarians. Ontarians need to know how much of their hard-earned tax dollars are going to a private company to make this luxury spa so that rich people can get expensive massages. The Premier has asserted that there’s no taxpayer money on the line. Well, I really wish that were so—I really do—but it is not going to be the case.

I just want to point out, Speaker, while we’re on the topic, that we are seeing a troubling pattern of this government’s obsession with massages.

Interjection.